Digital titles to cut down Bengaluru's property disputes

BENGALURU: Most fraudulent property transactions in the state take place in Bengaluru. To prevent this, Bengaluru has only to follow Shivamogga, where a pilot project has successfully created digital urban property ownership titles. Yet, the technology capital of India has not even taken baby steps in this direction.

"The urban property ownership record (UPOR) project has not started at all in Bengaluru. If the government starts now, it will take about three years for all the properties to be surveyed, objections called and property ownership titles created," said KV Rudresh, former Joint Director at Survey & Settlement Department, and a key member of the UPOR implementation team.

If UPOR titles are made available in Bengaluru, it will lead to a sharp drop in property disputes and increase transparency , said Rudresh. An official with the Department of Stamps and Registration agreed. "Double or multiple registrations of a property can be prevented and illegal layouts cannot come up if UPOR programme is implemented," he said.

Experts say political will, of the nature seen in the implementation of the Aadhaar programme, should be demonstrated in UPOR's case as well. "Records show that there are about 16 lakh properties in Bengaluru and once UPOR begins, it will uncover, perhaps, another 8 lakh properties which currently lie outside the property tax net," said S Suresh Kumar, former Urban Development Minister. He estimates that property tax collection could increase by about Rs 5,000 crore if titles are digitised.

Not only will the government be in a position to identify and reclaim its own lands that are encroached, the digitisation exercise will empower the civic authority to verify the exact built-up area of each title.

"The data will reveal the mismatch between the false claims made by property owners to evade taxes and the actual built-up area. The BBMP will be in a position to demand the difference," the official said.

"Bengaluru accounts for 70% of Karnataka's revenues and hence we cannot continue to have presumptive titles of the city's properties. The government should launch UPOR project in the city without any delay ," said JC Sharma, vice chairman at Sobha Developers and President of Credai Bangalore, a real estate industry body.